MAHLE Motorsport’s new marketing manager is a true hot rodder at heart and in practice, having started building engines at age 13 and later landing the editor’s spot at iconic Hot Rod Magazine.

MAHLE Motorsport, the performance division of MAHLE North America, found in Rob Kinnan a solid blend of performance and racing enthusiasm, industry knowledge, and hands-on builder-racer experience for steering its marketing efforts. Many in the PRI/SEMA community know Kinnan well from his 30-plus years of participation. 

Kinnan mused that he graduated from Colorado State University with a “minor in street racing” and a degree in technical journalism. His goal was to be behind the camera and editing for the TV news feature show 60 Minutes. When those jobs seemed unavailable, he sent resumes to his favorite car magazines, Hot Rod and Popular Hot Rodding. While on a trip to Southern California in 1989, he cold-called John Dianna, former Hot Rod editor and at the time vice president, group publisher, and got a meeting. “Then, bugging him for about three months got my foot in the door for a 33-year career of surfing among the Petersen magazines,” Kinnan recalled for PRI. “Finally, I made it into Jeff Smith’s former chair as editor of Hot Rod.”

Kinnan helmed Hot Rod for seven years and also served as editor for Mustang Monthly and several other titles before his recent stint as marketing director for ATI ProCharger. After relocating from California to North Carolina, he joined MAHLE Motorsport. 

“I wanted to work at an established company with a spectacular reputation,” he said. “MAHLE’s reputation is second to none, and promoting such a fabulous company is a great job. Being an engine builder—well, more of an engine assembler—from an early age, it’s right up my alley.”

Kinnan shared why he feels he’s a good fit with MAHLE Motorsport.

PRI: Let’s start with your tight connection to hot rodding and motorsports. What was the experience that pulled you into an automotive career?

Kinnan: There wasn’t really a single experience that got me into it. By the time I was 13 years old, I was totally eaten up about cars and hot rods. My dad was a heavy equipment mechanic and had me rebuild a 361- cubic-inch Ford V8 truck engine at 13. Then I helped him build the 327 in my first car, a 1968 Camaro convertible, and from then on it was, “Forget the bicycle, bring on the hot rods.”

PRI: How would you say your career in publishing, and perhaps specifically as editor of Hot Rod, prepared you for marketing in the performance/motorsports category?

Kinnan: I had experience with both good and bad marketing from other companies pitching me their products, so I kind of knew what to do and what not to do. That was preparation in itself. My experience at ProCharger taught me some tricks as well, even though my entire tenure there was during the COVID-19 pandemic when the world and all racing was shut down. 

PRI: In your publishing career, you witnessed and experienced firsthand 30-plus years of evolution in performance cars and their influence on motorsports. How does your experience from that side of the fence inform your perspective on that market?

Kinnan: I think it would be how close some production cars are, performance-wise, to race cars. That was certainly not the case 30 years ago. I would say the perspective that gives me is that the OEMs know what they’re doing. And getting to know many of their engineers over the years has solidified that in my mind. 

PRI: What do you see as the main challenges in motorsports today?

Kinnan: That depends on whether you’re asking a racer or an engine builder. For racers, some of their biggest hurdles are acquiring and maintaining sponsorships. For builders, I think it’s easier, since the technology and brainpower that’s out there has brought us all the killer parts and tuning required to build huge power, which was much more difficult to do 30 years ago. I think the biggest challenge for them is developing their own ways for making that extra 1 horsepower than the next guy, which is increasingly difficult these days.

PRI: Who has been most influential to you in your professional career?

Kinnan: Right after I got the Hot Rod editor’s job, [NHRA and Hot Rod founder] Wally Parks told me in the tower at Pomona to always tell the truth, since the readers take what we say as gospel, and try to never disappoint them. And of course, Jeff Smith for launching my career and teaching me the basics of how to be a magazine guy. 

PRI: Excluding your cellphone/tablet/computer, what’s one thing you can’t live without? 

Kinnan: My camera. That’s because my camera has always been an integral part of getting the job done, whether that’s telling a story, illustrating it, or providing evidence of what’s going on in the world.

Rob Kinnan

TITLE:
Marketing Manager

ORGANIZATION:
MAHLE Motorsport

HOMETOWN:
Asheville, North Carolina

FAST FACT:
“My fantasy has always been, since I was maybe five years old, to win the Indy 500, or at least to qualify for the race. That would be the coolest thing in the world to me. Making a lap around the Brickyard in one of the actual Camaros that paced the race around 2010 got me close. I had a tear in my eye as I lapped that track just two weeks after the race.”